Hot, Steamy and Dark This Afternoon

In the past week the weather has got noticeably hotter and more humid.  The English-language Japanese news channel we watch has told us that the rainy season has arrived ( a couple of days earlier than normal) so this seems to have been expected by most people.  I had no idea that the region had a “rainy season” per se, although our China guide does show that the average monthly rainfall rises to its highest in June, and declines slightly successively in July, August and then September, before falling away dramatically in October to a dry season that lasts really until the end of February.  We have now started running the air conditioning and the temperature will now rise to a maximum in July before then gradually falling away.  The guidebook describes the summer weather as “hot, humid and sapping with sudden epic rains” and this afternoon the rains have darkened the skies, but it is not like the heavy rapid bucket of water style tropical downpours of Hong Kong which come and go in torrent of water that means you can’t see across the road.  This is long and persistent rain from a front overhead where the warm tropical rain is fighting for supremacy over the colder air of the north.

Jia Jia Tang Bao

At the weekend we met up with friends from Hong Kong who were visiting Shanghai and their daughter, Lizzy, said that it wasn’t hot here at all.  But I’m not finding that to be the case.  The family have been to Shanghai before, so there were a couple of things on their list that they wanted to do and we joined them to have Xiao Long Bao at Jia Jia Tang Bao at 90 Huanghe Lu, a dumpling shop opposite the Art Deco shopfront of Yang’s Fried Dumplings.

The Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index

It’s a small cafe and at 11.45 on Saturday morning there was already a queue outside, but we didn’t have to wait particularly long to get a table.  Outside a poster had been put up by a particularly geeky foodie who has gone around all the xiao long bao restaurants in the city and measured the “quality” of each establishment’s dumplings.  He did this by measuring the total weight, the weight of the soup, the weight of the soup and the thickness of the skin, and assign a score by applying their own formula:

[(Filling + Soup / Thickness of Skin) x100]

representing  “the quality of structural engineering” of the dumpling and rating them as A, B or nothing at all.  It’s upset quite a few people in the city, because it only

Shanghai Dumpling Index

superficially measures texture and it has nothing to do with the flavour of the dumpling, which surely is what food is all about.  You can buy a map and guide to the “best” dumpling restaurants in town, which of course is what this whole gimmick is all about.

The Jia Jia Tang Bao café won’t take your order until a table in the small seating area comes available, but as I’ve said we didn’t have to wait too long.  We ordered pork dumplings and pork and crab, there

Devouring Xiao Long Bao

being no chicken ones left  – they must have gone at breakfast time.  A round of drinks all round, a dish of ginger and soy each, vinegar in a teapot and a spoonful of chilli to add to your tiny dish if you so wish and once the steamers with the dumplings start to arrive you tuck in.  The steamers had the unusual addition of what looked like hay mats added on top of the steamers inner shelf – we presumed to add flavour.  The dumplings are lifted with chopsticks (once you think they have cooled

The Match-Makers Market

down enough) into your tiny dishes of additional flavours and a small bite into the dough allows you to suck out the soup.  It’s not a particularly delicate operation and can be messy if the dumpling is too hot or your chopstick skills inadequate.  A bowl for disasters is also supplied.

After lunch we went through People’s Park – passed the elderly ladies with their umbrellas in the match-making market

Asleep inside an Exhibit

and onto the Urban Planning Museum at the other end of the Park, where Richard snapped someone taking a nap inside one of the exhibits.

(If you are following any of the above links don’t worry that I have sent you to a Blogger site rather than this WordPress one.  I reached my maximum free limit with WordPress sometime ago and I have been having to cut and paste old blog posts into an archive on my Blogger account in order to write new stories.  It’s time consuming and a pain, but I actually prefer WordPress as a blogger’s website, but I’m blowed if I’m going to pay to do it……)

Round-bottomed Glasses at the Gelateria

Interesting Gelati Flavours

We ended our afternoon together with a walk through the heavily shaded streets of the Old French Concession, ending up at an Italian Gelato shop, La Creme Milano, where we were automatically given some water in some round-bottomed glasses and some interesting ice cream flavours.  I loved my watermelon flavoured gelato, which I’m definitely going to try and make when I get near my ice-cream maker again, whenever that might be.

We met Julian, Pauline and Lizzy again the following day to have Brunch with them at M on the Bund.  We had an excellent meal with Richard having breaded tripe to start, Pauline and I having baby squid with a pomegranate and citrus sauce over a bed of almond sauce, Lizzy having blueberry pancakes and Julian having I can’t remember what for starters.  I then remembered to get my camera out and recorded the rest of our food.

On the Terrace at M on the Bund

Lizzy had a Traditional Fry-Up

Richard had an Iranian Pancake

Julian and I had Eggs Florentine

Pauline had a lamb dish

Richard and Lizzy both had Chocolate Cake

Pauline and Julian Share the Signature Pavlova

My Poached Peach with Mangosteen Ice Cream

As before we throughly enjoyed our meal at M on the Bund and afterwards we walked with our friends to the YuYuan Metro Station where they went on to explore the Old City as we went home, as Richard had to go on for a business meeting that Sunday evening.